A Stage Built for Me
Does the possession of a fine weapon serve as a yardstick of a martial artist's skill? It was a question that had once shaken the whole of the Jianghu to its core.
"Rely on such paltry external possessions, and you shall never set foot upon the realm of the Higher Order."
Many a strongman of traditional bent balked at counting a fine weapon among a warrior's strengths. External possessions, they argued, could be here today and gone tomorrow; a true martial artist's power had to flow from his own two hands.
It was not an unreasonable claim. Martial arts were, in the end, something cultivated in one's own flesh and unleashed from it.
And there was one argument that lent that position tremendous weight.
"That you speak of a weapon's utility at all is proof in itself that you are no master of the Higher Order."
Sword qi — the very essence of the martial arts. In the Jianghu, a master of the Higher Order meant, at the very least, one who had reached the Peak Realm or beyond, and the argument went that such men, wielding sword qi as they did, had no business grading the quality of blades.
In truth, save for the divine works of a handful of peerless master smiths, weapons that could withstand sword qi were exceedingly rare. That most armaments simply could not stand against sword qi was the common sense of the Jianghu — so entrenched, in fact, that street theater troupes made a staple act of some hermit master with a cheap one-silver blade shearing clean through the ten-gold sword of a villain. One might call it the Jianghu's own great hymn to the human spirit.
Those who held this position were known collectively as the Pure Faction.
But for the question to become such a controversy, there had to be an opposing camp — and there was. That camp was the Pragmatist Faction.
They were the words of a supreme master beyond even the Higher Order — a man who had crossed the Harmony Realm and reached the Profound Realm — and they landed upon the Jianghu with considerable weight.
Rumor held that they had come from an unnamed supreme master, an anonymity secured by the sacrifice and devotion of the Murim Alliance's intelligence corps. Having spent long years in the Beggar's Sect, I knew exactly who that man was.
The Alliance Leader of the age. A supreme master of whom it was said the Great Righteous-Demonic War would have taken an entirely different shape, had he not abruptly declared his retirement. Yeom Gi-ha, the Tyrant Emperor — he was the man behind those words.
Why the Alliance Leader — the very pivot of the orthodox Murim — came to bear the epithet "Pa," Destruction, a title one would sooner expect upon the head of the Heavenly Demon Cult, I believe is better left a secret of history.
As with every debate and every war of ideology, there was no right answer. Each side had its own position, its own justice. But at the same time — was the Jianghu not, by its very nature, a place where the claims of the powerful became truth?
With the Alliance Leader himself standing at the vanguard of the Pragmatists, the orthodox Murim of today might as well be called the age of the Grand Pragmatists. The Dragon and Phoenix Assembly, too, could hardly swim against that great current.
An old Daoist appeared, sharp-featured, the long robe hanging on him to perfection.
"This Daoist is Taecheong of Wudang, who shall preside over the second trial."
He was the man charged with the second trial, following Beomgak Daesa. Taecheong Jinin of Wudang was a figure who could stand shoulder to shoulder with the abbot of Shaolin himself — for he was the reigning Sect Leader of Wudang, the venerable great sect of the south.
"The second trial shall test the sword strike. As you all know, you will use your own weapon — but the use of internal energy and sword qi is forbidden."
At the mention of one's own weapon, color bloomed across the faces of many a senior disciple. The age of the Grand Pragmatists. The second trial, which would name the true Dragons and Phoenixes, was — how shall I put it — a trial where one's gear could do the heavy lifting.
The sword-strike trial was, just as it sounded, a test of the power carried within the blade. Sword qi was barred because the following trial would measure internal energy separately; since the destructive force of sword qi generally scaled with one's internal reserves, the restriction kept those rich in internal energy from cruising to high marks in both.
"You need only test your strike upon this."
Where Taecheong Jinin pointed sat a thick block of iron.
"A block of hundred-refined pure steel, a full foot thick."
Hundred-refined pure steel was the material from which the finest armaments were forged — so hard, it was said, that even sword qi could not easily hew it down.
"You must strive to leave so much as a mark upon it. Ah — though to cut clean through would be better still."
Taecheong chuckled to himself, as if he'd heard a fine joke. Fair enough — since the Assembly first began, no one had ever cleaved through the whole block.
"We shall proceed in reverse order of the first trial's standings. Come forth as your turn arrives."
With Taecheong Jinin's declaration, the second trial began. My turn would come last. Most satisfying — the protagonist always takes the stage last, after all.
What mattered most in a sword-strike trial that barred internal energy and sword qi? Some would say the quality of the weapon. Some, the raw strength of the body. Some, the speed of the strike. None of it wrong — and all of it precisely the answer of a first-rate hand, and nothing more.
A master who had climbed to the Peak Realm on his own strength had better produce a different answer. Was the Peak Realm merely a matter of piling up internal energy and spitting out sword qi on demand? Plausible at a glance — but not the truth of it. Sword qi was, properly understood, the sum total of the martial arts one had built. One did not become strong in order to manifest sword qi; sword qi was granted because one had become strong enough.
Everyone trained their own arts in pursuit of it. Learn the forms of an art and temper its movements until the body embodies them — that was called technique. Grasp the principles beneath an art and apply them to one's own flesh — that was called its inner principle. In truth, the essence of the martial arts lay in these very two: technique and principle. That was why sword qi could never be the whole of one's arts.
So my answer to the question was: principle. And the principle that mattered most in a trial that barred internal energy and sword qi, I believed, was Four Ounces Deflecting a Thousand Pounds. It was a teaching held dear by Sambong Jinin, the founding patriarch of Wudang himself — which was, I suspected, precisely why Taecheong Jinin presided over this trial.
"First — Jin-hu of the Paeng Clan."
"KHAHAHA! This is the trial I've been waiting for!"
At the call, a man of enormous build strode forward with a booming laugh. The Paeng Clan was a famed family of Hebei that stood shoulder to shoulder with the Namgung, and its young master was a man of truly colossal frame — each shoulder looked wider than my whole head. One look at that bulk and I understood why he'd finished dead last in the movement-arts trial. Yet at the same time, the fact that he had crossed two hundred li in that body told me he had not trained in vain.
Hoooo—
Paeng Jin-hu took his opening stance before the steel. As expected of a Peak Realm bladesman, it was a flawless opening of the Five Tigers Severing Gate Saber. The saber in his hand gleamed brilliantly; he, too, was a scion of a great family, and had no doubt brought a worthy armament.
"HYAAAP!"
Paeng Jin-hu brought his saber down on the steel without a flicker of hesitation. Four ounces and a thousand pounds be damned — he was simply smashing it with monstrous, mindless strength.
KUUUNG!
And at the result, every Dragon and Phoenix present stood with his jaw hanging open.
"KHAHAHAHA!"
Paeng Jin-hu laughed with pure delight. Beneath his saber lay the crushed block of hundred-refined steel.
Hm. A thought drifted through my mind: if a problem could not be solved by strength, perhaps the strength had simply been insufficient. So much for the trial of four ounces and a thousand pounds... or maybe not.
The trial rolled on, but no one matched the spectacle of the man who had gone first.
CLANG!
"Kgh."
With sword qi barred, the senior disciples' true caliber was stripped bare. Some could not so much as scratch the steel. Some managed only a hairline mark the size of a fingernail.
"Oooh."
And some succeeded in driving the very tip of their blade into the block. Of course, the names of those who managed it were a glittering roster, and it was undeniable that their weapons looked the part of treasures.
And then—
KAAANG!
Now and then, someone's own weapon shattered in their hands.
"Ahem."
Such souls would shoot a glance at Taecheong Jinin's face and vanish into the crowd in an instant.
"Think that thing will even pass?"
Dancheon Hak had come up beside me as I waited my turn. After giving me the cold shoulder since the movement-arts trial, he had apparently rediscovered his confidence. His gaze settled on my sword's hilt.
"What happened to the blade the clan passed down to you, that you'd bring such a shabby thing?"
The Dancheon Sword's edge, won from Cheon-gong's secret grotto, was as keen as ever — but its hilt, worn by years it could not hide, had grown shabby indeed. Now I knew where his sudden confidence had come from.
Shing.
Beaming with pride, Dancheon Hak drew his own sword. Its gleaming blade was striking indeed — even my limited eye could tell it was a famous sword.
"A sword, by rights, means something like this."
No doubt a divine weapon his mother, Baek Yeo-hae, had procured for him with all her wealth and influence.
"Ah, but I suppose you couldn't get your hands on anything like this, could you?"
Having said his piece, Dancheon Hak burst into laughter and sauntered away.
"Young Master Myeong has quite the fine older brother."
A single remark from the tight-lipped Yi Chun-baek made me laugh. True enough. I had no such backing. My father, Dancheon Gang, was practically the vanguard of the Pure Faction himself — for him to hand over a famous sword for the Assembly was simply out of the question.
I gripped the worn hilt of the sword Dancheon Hak had sneered at. The feel of it settling snugly into my hand set my heart at ease.
"Yes. Shining a light on his little brother — a truly wonderful older brother, indeed."
Dancheon Hak would soon learn just what the sword he had mocked could do. For Cheon-gong was reckoned the foremost of that handful of peerless master smiths. This trial was, in every sense, a stage built for me.
"Tan of the Namgung Clan. Come forth."
Namgung Tan's turn had arrived. He had only barely made it, nearly an hour late, so a fair stretch of the order had passed before his name was called.
"Ahem."
He blew a snort through his nose, then rammed his shoulder into mine as he passed. The so-called shoulder check — an act of such staggering stupidity that on a public street it ended in drawn blades nine times out of ten. He glanced back at me with a wide grin as he went, so I knew full well it was deliberate. One cannot make a scene mid-trial, so I let it slide.
Shing.
"Ooooh."
As Namgung Tan drew his blade with a confident air, gasps rose from every corner of the grounds.
"Isn't that Cheon-gong's eighth sword?"
Many in the hall recognized it. Plenty of senior disciples had already taken the trial wearing famous blades, but the sword now on display was of another order entirely — an heirloom handed down through the Namgung Clan, the eighth sword of the master smith Cheon-gong. It was a weapon that could truly be called a divine armament.
Hoooo—
Namgung Tan took his stance before the steel. Not the Boundless Firmament Sword Art, the most celebrated art of the Namgung. The King's Sword Form. That peerless art — reserved for the next head of the Namgung alone — had appeared here on the shoulders of the family's eldest son.
To have already entered the King's Sword Form... it meant that blockheaded wastrel took his martial arts seriously, at least.
"Hngh!"
Impeccable technique and the principle of four ounces deflecting a thousand pounds unfolded from the tip of his blade.
Kagagak!
A sound I had not heard once since the trial began rang out.
"Oh ho."
It was also the first time I'd seen Taecheong Jinin wear a satisfied expression. Namgung Tan's sword had driven a full half of its length into the foot-thick block of hundred-refined steel.
Shing— click—
Blade sheathed, Namgung Tan turned his gaze back toward me — wearing a thoroughly smug smile.
Sorry to be blunt, but he looked more than a little ridiculous.